Beginning the next 150 years

Adapted from an interview with the Rev. Mike Mulberry by Lynda Zimmer, published in The News Gazette Friday, October, 31 2003.

Leading Community UCC into its 151st year is Rev. Mike Mulberry, the new minister at CUCC. Rev. Mulberry is the kind of minister who thinks religion is more than a Sunday service.

The church had two interim pastors, the Rev. Jeffrey Phillips, who was installed as pastor/teacher at St. John United Church of Christ, Arlington Heights, on Nov. 16, 2003; and the Rev. Jane Courtright, who is at her home in Atkkinson awaiting another assignment.

Both the church Mulberry left and his new one have between 360 and 380 members. He most recently worked four years in North Hampton, N.H. "It was rough going at first," Mulberry said of his New England assignment. He succeeded a pastor who had been at the church for 22 years. "I had more energy than the congregation," Mulberry said. "They were used to church being a one-hour service and that was it. .. Regular attendance meant once or twice a month. The Northeast is becoming more and more secular, like Europe." Mulberry is proud to have left the New England congregation with "a full-fledged adult education program" and a stronger youth group that makes a regular mission trip to the Mexican border. He gives credit for the accomplishments to his wife, the Rev. Tracy Heilman, who was his co-pastor and Minister of Family Life. She led a weekly women's book study which changed the dialogue and gave voice to the women of the congregation. The leadership in the church started to mirror the congregation in the pews (more women than men)," Mulberry said. "She really trail-blazed things."

Heilman, who originally is from Princeton, IL, does not have a ministerial job in Champaign-Urbana, but is "keeping her options open, hoping to work with children and youth at the Eastern Association or Conference level" Mulberry said. The couple met when she was working with a youth group at the First Federated Church, Peoria, and he was working with a United Church of Christ youth group in Morton for three years. While Heilman left for seminary in Tulsa, Oklahoma to attend seminary and be closer to her father, Mulberry left for Wichita, Kansas.

"I'm a Midwesterner through and through," Mulberry said. He was the oldest of four children and grew up in Metamora. His mother, Sandra Mulberry, was a nurse and education administrator and his late father was the high school baseball coach and head guidance counselor. His grandmother still lives in Loda and his childhood pastor, Rev. Kenneth Roedder, recently retired from United Church of Christ congregations in Tuscola and Arthur, Illinois. As an undergraduate, Mulberry studied history, German, and religion at Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington; then he got a law degree at the UI. "During law school I got hooked up with First United Methodist in Urbana because it needed someone to work with youth. "I worked as a lawyer for awhile, but I was not very good at it," Mulberry said. "The law degree helped me immensely with writing, organizing my thoughts and critical thinking." During seminary, he spent a year doing mission work in southern Mexico. After his youth group work in Morton, he became an interim pastor in Wichita, Kansas, where his congregation became a leader in AIDS/HIV ministries.

When Mulberry left for Wichita, Kansas, Heilman, who was not yet his wife, left Illinois to study at a seminary in Tulsa, OK. "I thought she'd be a raging fundamentalist," Mulberry laughed, but he said that when they reconnected, he found out her Phillips Theological Seminary was a pocket of liberalism in Oklahoma.

Mulberry and Heilman have a 2-year old daughter. His 10- and 11-year old sons from a previous marriage live in Wisconsin with their mother but spend their summers and holidays with him.

They moved back to Illinois because they wanted to get back to the Midwest. "There is more diversity for children and grownups here, ...New Hampshire is so white. I missed the gift diversity brings," Mulberry said. He also heard the Champaign church committee talk about wanting a pastor to be prolific in doing justice work in the community."And I said 'Hear, hear, I want to be on that journey as well,'" he said